Trials of Slavery

From its establishment in the 1650s, the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope relied heavily on enslaved labour. Over some 180 years, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) transported some 63 000 persons as chattel across the Indian Ocean, from four main areas: Bengal and Sri Lanka; the Indonesian archipelago; Madagascar; and the east African coast, especially Mozambique. The slave trade was outlawed by the British in 1807 and official abolition followed with the Slavery Abolition Act (1833). Emancipation formally took effect at the Cape in 1834, at which point a period of indenture or ‘apprenticeship’ began (ending in 1838). The Cape colony had passed from Dutch to British control in 1806.

What we know about Cape slavery is overwhelmingly framed by the interests of the VOC and the Dutch state. Nonetheless, the VOC’s copious archives provide detailed insight into the workings – and failings – of the system, as well as the lives of those involved. From the many thousands of trials heard in the Council of Justice (Raad van Justitie), records of 87 trials were selected by Nigel Worden and Gerald Groenewald for detailed rendition and analysis. Their edited volume, Trials of Slavery: selected documents concerning slaves from the criminal records of the Council of Justice at the Cape of Good Hope, 1705-1794 (Cape Town: Historical Publications Southern Africa [HiPSA, formerly Van Riebeeck Society], 2005), gives unique insights into social history. Recurrent themes include resistance; desertion and marronage; arson; physical violence and threats thereof, including gender-based violence; and property crimes. Implicit in the trial documents is evidence of life and work on farms and in households, as well as the political imagination of enslaved persons. The selected documents are republished here, in both transcribed Dutch and translated English versions, matching the format of the book, Trials of Slavery. The interpretive material from that book provides readers with further insight into these microhistories of Cape slavery.

As collaborators in this digital republication of the Trials of Slavery we have worked in a spirit of inclusive and reparative scholarship, guided by several principles and beliefs:

• That human costs and undocumented suffering have accompanied enslavement around the globe and throughout history, including the present day;
• That scholarly inquiry opens wounds, old and recent, for descent communities;
• That enslaved ancestry, whether acknowledged as such or not, is often associated with trauma.

We acknowledge these systemic injustices. At the same time we hope that our collective work can help explain the lived consequences of inhumane systems and provide a platform for continued inquiry and dialogue. In a spirit of care and respect, we invite engagement on any of the materials presented on this website.

This website allows you to explore the stories of enslaved individuals. 87 legal cases are presented in chronological order, from 1704 to 1794, each identified by the name of the accused. Each begins with a summary, followed by the trial document(s) in English translation with the Dutch original alongside, and accompanied by a map. Footnotes provide detailed explanation with references, while fuller context is available under the Histories tab. You may find recurrent themes (e.g. ‘arson’, ‘theft’) via the tags attached to individual cases or via the Search tab.

The digital republication of these sources was coordinated by Grant Parker: the intention was to broaden access to the original volume edited by Nigel Worden and Gerald Groenewald, Trials of Slavery: selected documents concerning slaves from the criminal records of the Council of Justice at the Cape of Good Hope, 1705-1794 (2005).

The website was originally built by Simon Wiles (Stanford University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research, CIDR) on the basis of work done by undergraduate interns of the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA): Fiona Clunan, Kiana Hu and Victoria (Vicky) Wu. Integration of the website into the Archive to Narrative portal was carried out by Stephen Symons.

Input and assistance came from Gerald Groenewald, Antonia Malan, Stefania Manfio, Laura J. Mitchell, Alice Parkington, Kerry Ward, and Nigel Worden.

The main funding that made this project possible came from a Changing Human Experience grant of Stanford Public Humanities; subsequent support came from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

The original documents on which Trials of Slavery drew are housed in the Western Cape Archives and Record Service (WCARS), Cape Town.